Why Tanks aren't in the LFG queue

[zaubade]

You guys fail at story sharing!

well fine then..
and you already covered all the ones I have.... and then some

[Girlie]

Overall I would say with Random I have had very few issues. I have had a healing shaman who kept pulling every group for me and needed when the Bag dropped off that one boss in ICC.

Were we in the same group? Cause I know this guy (and it ain't klor's shammy). Running CoT and having him pulling the gauntlet was fun for the first 10 seconds. Alas, he did not survive.

I don't go into the LFG queue anymore without 2-3 friends. Im a tank, all I have to say in guild is Im doing randoms. Instant queue and usually a guild healer. What more could I want? This is why there are not alot of tanks in the random system. It's not hard for us to find an group to queue up with an avoid the randoms that their own guild won't group with.

NOW..Ive had some AMAZING dps joing and had some really great groups when it was just my brother (healing) and me (tanking) join.

Im allergic to children with ADD who run ahead pulling and the Hunter with scattershot.
While, I can recover from their retardation, I would just rather chain pull
myself, get it done and not have to actually WORK hard when Im in Nexus.

OK..my sharing story, I got kicked from VH right at the last boss. I was running with 4 people from the same guild in the random. They said: "cya l8ter" before I got kicked. I cried, I admit. Cause I was in VH again for the 40th gazillionth time.

[kingcomrade]

The real reason there's so few tanks is because it is hardest to gear up a tank out of all the various roles. Basically either you can have a guild (if you're lucky enough to be in a good one) run you through normal modes or you go as DPS and ninja the tank items. I tried to gear my first 80, a DK, as a tank, and eventually I rolled a priest just because I got frustrated with not being able to get into groups (in 3.3 my LFG wait time is 30 seconds to 2 minutes compared to 15-30 minutes on the DK). Trying to tank heroics without tanking gear requires a ridiculously geared healer (I am one, and it's kind of silly how fast tanks go down if I'm not spamming on them, I kind of think the current design of the tanking/healing game is a bad one). I honestly think the gear requirements for tanks should go down a bit, at least for heroics, just so that new tanks can actually tank the instances they want loot from.

As for tanks being upset with the DPS doing stupid things, that happens, but you know what I run into more than twice as much? Well-geared overconfident tanks who, for some reason, are in a big hurry pulling half the instance then blaming the healer (me) when we wipe. "Sorry honey you're just not good enough to heal this" -> votekick. Tanks who overpull (especially in Old Kingdom where some of the mobs do retarded amounts of damage) or tanks who are too lazy to grab aggro on all the mobs rather than just the ones they don't have to move their toon around to get (Halls of Reflection) make the game aggravating sometimes. The only real thing DPS does on a regular basis that makes me sigh is not targetting the right monsters first, which honestly isn't that big of a deal except in ToC.

[Bovinity]

I'm at the point now where I do throw my weight as a tank around a little when DPSers behave like they did in the original post. I don't care what some random_rogue thinks, or how fail he thinks my ways are. He's just a faceless, nameless, replaceable, dime-a-dozen DPSer. He can take his butt right back to his 15 minute queue if he doesn't like it. =)

[Chamenas]

I honestly don't see that as much, kingcomrade, in heroics. Then again, I'm either tanking or playing my 5-6k dps warlock (things go down fast, really fast). But I agree, it happens a LOT in lower level instances too, but I chalked that up to tanks not knowing how to tank. The good thing about lower levels is we can kick the tank and some plate DPS can generally pick it up with my heals.

We'll see what happens when my healer gets to 80, but I did mention it in my post. There are bad tanks out there, but we're not all bad. Automatically assuming the tank is bad and treating them like junk is a good way to get them to not queue, or to group up with guildies and queue.

If they let my tank's emblems of triumph be BoA, I'd tank more. Solution instantly!

Another story. I was in Occulus tanking and the hunter starts to pull some groups. I ask him kindly to not pull, that, if I'm not pulling it's for a reason. He continues to do it but it doesn't cause any major issue. Anyways, the healer wanted to run a Ruby Drake for the Experienced Drake Rider achievement. I hadn't run an Emerald before, but agreed to do it. We landed on one of the platforms with a pull and I asked a question about Emerald Drakes. The Hunter could clearly see why I had not yet pulled and yet he pulled anyways.

I got angry and rounded on him, flat out asking him why he was not listening to me and continuing to pull. His response was that I was a crappy tank and that I should be thankful that he was speeding things up for me. Happy ending though: Vote kicked him and we got a new DPS. Finished with enough time left for Make it Count.

[Azuae]

I have run into quite a few poor tanks lately.

I'll queue up my warrior as dps (rather than tank like normal) for FoS because I want the dps trinket. My viewpoint is, if I want a piece of gear from an instance, I need to play that role in the instance. My warrior is very well geared for tanking, and fairly well geared for dpsing, but I've ended up offering to swap from dpsing to tanking many times in the past 2 weeks because the tank simply was horrid. Yes, there were some gear level differences between my 245ilvl warrior and their 219/232 ilvl gear, but that isn't a good excuse for being so poor at threat production as these tanks were. I've run into some DK's lately that I would let them drop a DnD and let that DnD run its full course before I even moved in and attacked. 1 whirlwind later and I had aggro on 3 mobs. Ok, so don't whirlwind as the 2nd move in combat. I wait for DnD to dissapear on the next pack, and tab through the targets to see threat levels - pick the mob with the highest and BT & HS - boom I'm up to the tanks threat level. WTF??? I've run with guild tank alts that were similarly geared as these DK's and I can charge in and open with a WW/BT combo on pretty much any mob and the tank will hold them without difficulty. (Heck, i've run with guild alts that were in blue ilvl 200 gear and they held aggro just fine with me going nuts - unless I actually got to the mobs first and opened with a WW before they actually got there. Only do that in all guild runs when we are just screwing around though of course)

On my pally I've queue'd up as healer lately rather than tank because I'm trying to round out my healing gear. Same issues - tanks with decent gear (232) failing at holding any aggro even after having plenty of time (30 seconds plus sometimes) to build aggro on groups.


I can't blame lack of gear for these poor performances. There have been some undergeared yet great tanks that i've run with as well (mostly guild alts). I literally had a guild warrior alt hit 80 and then tank heroic HoL 15 mins later. I went balls to the wall with dps on my warrior and rarely pulled aggro. I pulled 5k+ dps for that run overall. This person was still learning the mechanics of warrior tanking.


As for why I'm not fond of queueing up as a tank anymore - I've carried so many groups through these instances lately its worn me out. I've seen dps that couldn't break 1k dps in HVH. I've seen healers that could barely keep me alive in my max EH gear, my block gear set, or my unhittable set. Most of the scenarios above don't describe what I've found.

Scenario: Prot Warrior with ilvl 245+ gear, dps with quest greens/blues/epics up to ilvl 232. The prot warrior does as much dmg for the run as the 3 "dps" classes combined

Prot Warrior: Are you guys awake?
DPS1: Sup
DPS2: Here!
DPS3: Why aren't we moving faster?? I thought with you we'd clear this place in 15 mins.
Prot Warr: Well, good, I'm glad you are here. I do wonder though, why I'm doing more dmg than the 3 of you combined...
DPS1: Hey man, I'm doing my best!
DPS2: Don't look at me, I just hit 80.
DPS3: (does not reply - he is on autofollow again)

At the end of the run
Prot Warrior: Well, I'm glad we made it through that instance. I'm gonna suggest to you guys though that you run some regular instances before you try heroics again - Prot Warriors should not be doing double your dps and doing more combined dmg than all 3 of you combined. Oh and the healer should not have been able to do more dmg than you as well. Thank goodness he was able to do some dmg or that boss would still be alive.
DPS1: ! DON"T TELL ME HOW TO PLAY MY CLASS!
DPS2: WTF You are a TANK not a FURY WARRIOR! I KNOW HOW TO DO MY JOB! YOU DO YOURS BETTER NEXT TIME!
DPS3: (no reply because he's afk again after needing on every drop in the instance)
Healer: Man, you dps SUCK. Learn to play your classes.

And as Reev said - My tanks (prot warrior/prot pally) are both very well geared as tanks. I'll run a few heroics a day on my pally just for badges for healing gear, but I'm tired of tanking these instances. Its work to tank. Dpsing the instances, or healing them is very different and fun. I've already maxed out a mage on badge gear, and am working on a shadow priest now. I've tanked for years now, I need breaks occasionally - and tanking for undergeared random pug members just doesn't do it for me most of the time.


Also - for all the moaning i've seen about tanks charging off chain pulling when the healer/dps isn't ready/etc trying to rush the instance - In all the instances I've tanked/dpsed/healed (lots now), I've never had a complaint about the tank moving too fast. I did have one healer leave the part after the 2nd pull in an instance once - with no word as to why. I was with a group of 3 guild dpsers and I was tanking. I asked if everyone was ready - he said yeah, and proceeded to pull the first pack, then after that was dead, the 2nd pack (he had 98% mana after the 1st pack). I have no clue why he left, but we found another healer right away and were off again.

[Norik]

I found that by whispering the healer at the start of the run something along the lines of "You keep me alive and tell me when you want me to stop, and Ill keep you alive" works wonders.
9/10 times your healer is going to be one of the smarter ones in the group, so earn the trust of your healer.
And yes I do play a DPS class on the side,so I do see both sides of the coin.

[jnlentz]

I think I have the most horrific story in this thread. Awhile back I que'd into a random and got AK. We started going and on the 3rd pull, while being way ahead on threat on all 4 mobs, I got killed. I play a warrior, at the time had about 44k buffed, full tier 9, etc. If my dieing on trash pulls in AK wasn't bad enough, one of the dps proceeded to blame the entire thing on me, because I was using cleave. I tried to explain to him that when tanking multiple mobs on a warrior you tab through the mobs using SS/revenge/devastate, and cleave in between, provided rage is high enough. He kept insisting that the tank should never use cleave, that I was the worst tank he'd ever seen, bla bla bla. I left group.

[Vindicatar]

Ive got a few stories for you Lulia. Now I consider myself a decent tank, with crazy gear(245/258/264 in every slot)

#1 I was doing H UP with my GF's hunter alt. The rogue in group insisted on using tricks on me and pulling every damn group onto me. Its frustrating as hell when rogues do this. They run ahead, tricks mobs onto you while the other dps are AoEing, and some mobs can get loose, then you get blamed because YOU cant hold aggro. anyways.. I ask him to not do it, if he wants to pull, reroll a tank. His reply is "LOL noob u have a 5.7k GS deal with it" He does it a few more times and I ask him to stop again and why i dont want him to do it. He did stop surprisingly. So we reach the last boss in H UP and before Im about to pull my gf is like "WTF?" i look at her screen and there is a votekick that has been initiated for me ~_~ she obviously hit no, and LOLd at them for trying to kick me with her in group.

#2 I was running with a guildie gearing up his druid alt and we got H VH. We had a pretty decently geared hunter in group. This hunter probably helped kill like 3 waves in there, and they were the ones that spawn on the main floor area. He refused to move to kill anything, and just stood there untill there were either close by mobs, or the boss. Needless to say we noticed this, but couldnt kick him until the 15min timer was up that allows you to votekick someone. I think we could finally kick him on wave 16. Sigh @ pretty much 4-manning H VH.

#3 Running with the same druid alt, we were doing H ToC5 and the jousting part of that instance was abysmal. People either kept dying/ didnt know what to do/ werent focusing targets. All while this was going on, we had a shaman hunter abusing everyone about how fail they were, and that we should all know what we were doing for our GS's ~_~ pretty sure he was typing more that actually trying to help with the encounter. So I go to pull the 3 mobs, and he types 'WAIT!" he has like 90% mana. ? he says " NO ONE PULLS UNLESS I HAVE FULL MANA! IF U PULL AND IM NOT FULL I WONT HEAL!" he then demands a mage table, and continues his random abuse at other players for various reasons; gems/chants/buffs; So we down the first boss, and his heals were questionable. Pretty sure a 58k buffed ICC25 raid tank isnt THAT hard to keep up. So he rants about how 'sloppy' the kill was, the other members in group were telling him off at this point. We get to The Black Knight, and just as someone talked to Jaeron(?) the 15min timer was up, and he got an instant votekick. The new healer came in half way through P1 and saved the day with no mana and in shadow spec

Now im not sure why people want to act like this in LFD, but tbh, if you wanna be a douche, votekick is just a click away. I really dont care if these people are in a que for 15-20mins, maybe they should appreciate their tanks a little bit more. And I can completely understand why tanks are rarer than ever. Who wants to cop this every run when they are paying with THEIR money for a game that is meant to be FUN.

Vin

[boogi]

When I tank randoms I usually enter with my EH set or tbh it isn't even my EH set, it's more like my "show of health to noobs" set. After entering with around 44k unbuffed I usually get some initial respect and when the buffing is done I switch in some dps pieces and downgrade others for more dps and treath.

The reason I don't sign up for more than 1 random per day is the work it involves as a warrior tank and how monotonous this job is in the long run. I've made the mistake of signing up as tank over my morning coffee, thinking that I could slack and pull some just dinged 80's through. Usually Murphys law steps in at this point and the dps decides to challenge the "imba 44k tonk" and I can't be arsed switching between mobs because I'm not awake yet.

My point is that you can't sign up as tank expecting to get any slack from the dps no matter how nicely you ask. DPS and healers can go AFK for 1 or more thrash packs without anyone complaining but if the tank doesn't pull fast enough or god forbid looses agro he's a slacker and a noob that needs to l2p (and yes I've gone afk on my disc priest for thrash pulls, just shielding and hotting people up).

So I'm only doing 1 random heroic as tank per day, and this is my limit since I don't need any Triumph emblems. I will consider tanking more random dungeons when dps:ers can pry their eyes from dps meters and look at treath, because just maybe the tank is taking a sip of his morning coffee.

[Proletaria]

I don't have too many anecdotal stories about why i like or dislike the LFD system. For the most part my dk main, prot warrior and pally alts, as well as my healer (shaman) have little issue with truly awful groups. They crop up from time to time, but i tend to smell the stench of fail early enough that I don't waste much time with them.

On a positive note for LFD: Leveling a tank alt has never been easier, more fun, or full of experience for the novice tank. I've been leveling a rogue alt with an RL friend (who is new to tanking) prot pally. While the ease of his class has a lot to do with it(he's a 2-button-macrodin without shame), tanking low level dungeons repeatedly has built up quite a few skills he will need to have when he (if he) eventually gets to raid tanking.

[Eisen]

I don't often run into the "I just hit 80" crowd, but I love em. Frankly, I'd rather have 3 dps who all do lower dps than me because they just hit and don't ahve good gear yet, than 3 dps with gearscores higher than mine who do lower dps than me and have no idea what the heck they're doing.

[Swam]

After strings of fail pugs me and my friend decided to only pug together. He has a pally tank and shaman healer, I have a dk tank and a priest healer, works well. Then again we make our groups hate us or love us.
We chain pull as fast as we can. If im healing and im not healing that much I start to dps, often I will start dpsing a group my buddie isnt tanking, he does the same to me. One reason we can do this Is we are both very good and almost never wipe. We either end up with dps who whine that we are going to fast and they cant get mana or a group that will be laughing their asses off and joining in our game.

[Shieldless]

Yesterday I was in a group for nexus. Now I'm not sure why, but I always end up with terrible dps when I go to that place. After the first couple pulls the warrior in my group decides to pull the first boss, the group after the first boss, and the group after that, as I am pulling the group before the boss, and then ran over to the rest of us, died, and wiped us. While we were all dead, he simply said "fail" and left the group, as well as our healer.

After this I felt like everyone on earth must now be a complete moron, or an asshole, I'm not sure which. Still, I queued again and ended up in Gundrak. Here I had a very well geared healer, (ToGC 25 and ICC gear) a mage, a hunter, and a rogue who had just dinged 80. After the first two pulls I immediately noticed the hunter would be problematic, pulling aggro, then continuing to attack the target he pulled, and then not even using fiegn death or disengage, or anything of that sort.

After the first boss, I decided that he wasn't worth my taunts, so I let him die. Needless to say, he left the group as soon as that happened. But then, my faith in other players was renewed when the healer immediately complained about him, saying that any dps that pulls aggro and doesn't do anything about it should die, and that he would never waste his heals on someone who has aggro that shouldn't. The mage and the rogue then immediately chimed in complaining about how dps were getting a bad image with all the bad dps out there who pull aggro and blame everyone else. So now I know there is at least some good left in the world.

[the27thvoice]

Good point Reev, there really is a lack of variation and incentive. At some point there just is nothing else to grind for. I also get generally good groups, but have nothing to run for.

I used to make this all worse on my server though, kudos to Blizzard for stopping me there. Most of the time in the old LFG tool, DPS would make the groups and then look for tank/healer. There was always a bunch of DPS in the LFG thingy. As a tank, all I had to do was grab a healer, and the group would be formed within 30 seconds (with my pick of DPSers, some are to be avoided).
If I went into LFG and saw other tanks there and no healers, I'd invite them over the pure DPSers in there. Tanks love to go offspecc, and it kept other groups from forming who could otherwise steal my healers.

[Chamenas]

My offspec is another tank spec. I don't dps on my tank :P

[Reikk]

My main is an 80 warrior. I was a tank from the start and was all the way until I was level 80. I didn't even have dual spec until then. I hit 80 and then tanking took its toll on me. People don't realize that tanking is more stressful than any other position and that one wrong move can wipe a group possibly. I know tanks aren't perfect but they are held to such a high standard. In the LFD I normally just do dps now and my dps gear has overtaken my tank gear.

But anyways, one of my most frustrating moments as a tank was in regular Halls of Lightning against the first boss (didn't want to try and spell his name). We cleared some of the trash and were waiting for the boss when he wasn't charged. I am just sitting there waiting and of course the hunter decides to pull the next trash group before the General is far enough away=wipe. So I shake it off and we go at it again. Once again, the hunter pulls the boss when he is charged and then sends his pet to attack the mob at the same time=wipe again. He gets all mad that I didn't keep aggro on the mob he pulled and leaves. So I tell them one more try. We kill another mob and then our group runs back to get out of the way of the boss while he is charged, except the druid who attacks the boss and runs back to us and we wipe.....again.

It was very frustrating that they wouldn't even let me pull the boss once. I find this kind of thing very popular in the lower lvls. Hotshot mages and hunters pull a group and expect the tank to pull aggro off them and me (the heals with my alt) to keep them alive.

[Eisen]

So I just got a story.

Did my daily random for my frosts...it was UK. We have a several minute wait for the rogue while he gets a glyph in right off the bat. whatever, I'm patient. Just as I decide to start pullling trash and let him catch up, he shows up.

First pull. Almost immediately after moving into the mobs, they suddenly are 10 feet back from me. First I think it's the pathing bugs messing with me, then I realize the druid used Typhoon. OK, I'll let it go this once.

Second pull. Almost immediately upon getting to the mob pack, the druid typhoons again. one of them is out of TC range now, it aggros on the druid. I get it back cause I'm just that awesome. I ask in party chat very nicely "Please stop using typhoon." Two pulls later it happens again. Now I'm mad. I tell the druid plain as day he either stops using typhoon or the group is looking for a new tank. His reply "Stop doing what? I'm not doing anything {expletive}". I explain, again, that he's using typhoon and it's making me have to chase mobs. The healer replies "Oh it's not his fault, he has his pvp set on. So I check his geat. He has 1 pvp item. Shoulders. And I go through all his trinkets and his pvp set bonuses to see if there's something that makes him randomly typhoon without his trying to. Nope.

So we get to the 4-mob pack right before the first boss. No sooner do I have them locked down but he drops a moonfire on the boss! I handle it, it's nbd. But I'm a little mad. After that though he behaves himself all the way through the instance. Then, at the very end...someone votes to kick him right before the last boss. I actually declined. The dude spent 2/3rds of the run behaving..much as the start irritated me I'm not gonna deprive him of his frosts right before the boss. That's a jerk move. I probably shoulda kicked him after the first couple pulls, but I try to be a nice guy.

[Matthew Dryden]

I started played 1 week before 3.3 came out. I had tried WoW before, but no class stuck as well as playing a protection warrior did. I was already level 25 (recruit-a-friend) by some casual playing when the random dungeon finder was introduced.

Long story short, I've been tanking instances since level 25. I have been learning the tank role from the ground up; refining my rotations, learning how to chain pull, mark targets, and LOS-pull all with random groups.

I love the random dungeon finder, especially as a tank.

Being a tank for terrible groups just means you have to work harder to keep aggro, stay alive, and rely on basic skills just to get by. I have gotten some truly terrible groups in the 30-40 range, but we were all mostly learning the game still. One memorable instance was when I was completely undergeared for Uldaman, but my healer did his best until I started tightening up my rotations and cooldowns until the DPSers stopped pulling aggro off of me.

I was really enjoying the groups until I hit 55-65 content. This is when the terrible attitudes start. People think that they know their roles inside-out, and expect you to not make a single-fucking-mistake. I know that I'm not the best tank ever, but I hold my own. I don't care if you've ran this instance 4 times already, the tank pulls, and you fire at the targets.

I've been known to get a little mouthy when we wipe for a stupid reason like an extra pull, or when I die and see that the healer has full mana, but I've learned to shut my mouth and just do my job. People think they deserve respect at level 55-65 for some reason, I'm not sure why.

My single worst experience as a tank was going into an instance with a mouthy DK who was much better geared than I. Now I was handling the mobs pretty well, but I didn't know the instance at all (Hellfire Citidal, I think). I accidentally pulled a patroling mob with the normal pull and we wiped. From that point on, I was constantly fighting for aggro with the DK who was using that "get over here" skill y'all got. Eventually I said, "You spank it, you tank it."

Thankfully, my healer was understanding and focus on me, letting the DK go down every few pulls. I love tanking and everything that comes with it. Doing randoms with PUGs is making me a better tank in the long run. I don't bitch when DPS pulls of off me. I do what I can to get the mob back and figure out what I can do to keep it from happening.

But yeah, I've seen every single one of those scenarios go down. I'm not discouraged, nor pissed. I just deal with the assholes as they come. I'll be the better player in the end.

[Kisain]

Sure i have had these issues but if a dps gets trigger happy i just turn a blind eye for some time after they're ressed from a slap in the face they usually stiffen up and listen